


Kingdom of Heaven, Crown of Fire

by Lore55



Category: Naruto
Genre: (yet), AU, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Ambitious Uzumaki Naruto, BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Friendship, Gen, Hokage Haruno Sakura, Light Angst, Light-Hearted, Male-Female Friendship, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mystery, Nepotism, No Uchiha Massacre, Political Drama, Pre-estamblished friendships, Team as Family, moves fast, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:38:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lore55/pseuds/Lore55
Summary: As the heir apparent for the kingdom of Konoha, Sakura Haruno has been training for years to lead her people. Now, with her claim already tenuous, something ancient has awakened and a horrible truth creeping towards the light, all she knows and loves is at risk.





	Kingdom of Heaven, Crown of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I watch to much Game of Thrones, DW, and Galahad.

Lady Tsunade, Hokage of Konoha, had never had children.

 

She hadn’t had time when she was younger. She was too busy forcing the world around her to change to raise a child and by the time she stopped to look around her her husband was gone and she found herself passing her title on to her cousin's husband instead of stepping up when she should have.

 

 She had rectified that, in the end, but the problem remained. She had no children, he’d had no children, and she was the last of the Senju and Uzumaki lines, ruler of her people, and despite her longevity she was getting older.

 

So now here she was, preparing to hand the title over to another.

 

Sakura was a little scrap of a thing. Tiny, really, she barely came up to the shoulders of most grown men. But she was fierce, and smart, and though her name held little power Tsunade had been training her since before she had reached her thirteenth year.

 

There was little to justify the choice in the eyes of the other noble clans. By all rights she should have chosen from the other Old Families. Families that had been in Konoha since before the Scattered Suns went out and the all the Lightning Bugs had died. Her’s would die with her, but there were others that would live on. Other’s that would have liked very much if Tsunade had chosen their children. The Hyuuga had an abundance of children. The Aburame, the Akimichi were just as willing. And the Uchiha, well.

 

The less said about them the better.

 

So Sakura was from a lesser clan, one of many. And true, looking at her she didn’t seem impressive. Beautiful, yes, in an unusual, unnatural way. It wouldn’t have been hard to marry her up into one of the greater clans.

 

But Sakura was like Tsunade, she was not meant to be a Lady, who governed her house and contented herself with her children. She was too full of fire for that. She embodied the very will that their home was founded upon. Though the Great Torches were long from lit.

 

Thus they prepared, a coronation set and heir apparent.

 

* * *

 

 

The sun was going out.

 

Sakura stared up at it from the middle of one of the rice fields, watching the golden light begin to fade with a pit opening up in her stomach.

 

The people would take this as a bad sign. That her reign was cursed to fail and that her people would suffer beneath her. There were already rumors and enough of a scandal with her shaky claim to the throne. This was the very last thing that she needed.  

 

Not to mention the other repercussions of the sun going out. The rice would die, people would starve , riot and fight.

 

“What do we do about it?” Naruto asked. He stood beside her, a constant friend for years now. His skin was tanned a sunny gold and his corn-pale hair flowed faintly in the catching light. He was taller than her by a head, a fact she had resigned herself to when they were teenagers and he finally passed her by.

 

His star blue eyes were, for once, not filled with any sort of mirth or mischief but a deep worry. Darkened with concern.

 

On his other side, Sasuke was quiet, as was his nature, but no less attentive. A few stray strands of sky black hair fluttered into his face, brushing his fine, high cheeks. Sasuke was easily the prettiest of the three of them. Girls had been fawning over him and boy that didn’t had been hating him for it since they were barely teenagers.

 

All Sakura could do was shake her head.

 

“We can’t control the sun,” she said, guilty. Already she could hear the men and women who worked the fields whispering. She squared her shoulders. There was already a lot weighing on them and she didn’t even had a crown yet.

 

“We tell them not to worry,” she said, as though such a thing would work. “We tell them that it is a sign, but it’s a sign of change and they don’t need to worry about it or be afraid.”

 

“The last time the sun went out, a hundred people died,” Sasuke reminded her solemnly. As if she didn’t know. She was the cleverest of the three of them, she knew the most about the history of their kingdom and their people. She knew the laws, and the punishments. She knew medicines and healing arts, and she knew diplomacy. She was almost as good in a fight as both of them, and if it came down to it she could lead troops as well as she lead people.

 

She didn’t need a reminder of the consequences of this omen.

 

Sakura shot him a sour look, but it was Naruto who elbowed him in the side.

 

“You think she doesn’t know that already? Panics not going to do anyone any good.”

 

Naruto scowled at the pair of them.

 

“People deserve the truth, not hollow comforts,” he insisted. Sakura cast her green gaze upon him, her heart turing in her chest. Sometimes she forgot, but Naruto was not like them.

 

Sakura was the only daughter of a minor clan, the Haruno, but she had expressed herself to the Hokage,Tsunade, during her first year studying. She the end of the Senju line and she had chosen Sakura, barely a noblewoman at all, to be her heir.

 

Sasuke was from a Great Clan, one of the biggest and most influential families to exist. He had grown up in luxury, with more riches than the stars in the sky.  He’d been raised with old money, and old expectations, and old, dangerous training.

 

Naruto, however, was nothing.

 

He had no family, no name, and no future.

 

Sakura trusted him a thousand times more than any of the court lords and ladies.

 

He was honest with her. He had told her from the first time they met, when he was just an untested soldier given to her guard to the day she was named heiress that he wanted more. He wanted a name, he wanted a position, he wanted to be a leader. He wanted to be a Hokage and he would do anything to get there.  

 

He was one of Sakura’s most trusted guards.

 

“For now, have everyone stay inside. Out of the fields. It might not go out for very long,”

 

“Sakura.”

 

Sasuke’s voice was low and quiet. She looked at him, clenching her hands behind her back to hide how tight her fists were.

 

“This is a bad plan. Find a better one.”

 

Sakura looked between the pair. A guard who got in on shear will and one who was at her side because of nepotism.

 

She knew they were right. She knew there was nothing she could do to hide the truth of all this, or stop the talking and the rumors and ill omens.

 

“What else can I do? We can’t control the sun.”

 

In old, it was said that the Hokage’s could control the elements. They could brighten or darken the sun, turn day to night and summon the winds and rains to do their bidding. They could call the mountains to move and change the labyrinth of the castle with a thought and a wave of their hands.

 

Old stories, fantastical tales. Word was even told that the founders of their home were gods in the skin of men who had ferried them away from a fiery hell.

 

Nice stories, but they did nothing to help Sakura now.

 

There was nothing now that could stop the sun from going out, and nothing she could do to reverse it.

 

She turned on her heel and walked between the two boys who fell in beside her, one on each side.

 

“Alright,” she said at last. She tried to think. There had to be something else she could do. Something that would help people but wouldn’t cause a panic. How much food was in the grainery? How long could they last if the sun went out?

 

“Okay. Send them out, have anything ready harvested and send it to be stored,” she ordered shortly. “As soon as that’s done, call everyone into the castle. I need to find Lady Tsunade and tell her what’s going on.”

 

Naruto looked to Sasuke, mouth curved. “You heard her. Go on, messenger boy.”

 

“She was obviously talking to you,” Sasuke dismissed with a sniff and a raise of his chin.

 

Sakura stopped walking long enough to smack the both of them in the face. “One of you go, now. The other one has to sit in on whatever council meeting this results in.”

 

Naruto paled under his tanned skin and ran off.

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and looked at Sasuke, who looked like he’d bitten into a lemon.

 

“Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Sakura sat in her room some hours later, looking out the window and into the depths of the stars outside. They shone brightly in the dark sky. They felt like they were taunting her. Calling to her but she had no way of reaching out to touch them. Tiny sparks of fire in the sky.

 

The door slid open with a quiet rush of air.

 

Sakura turned around from her window to see Tsunade standing there with her Lady-in-Waiting, Shizune, and two of Sakura’s own. Ino Yamanaka, an age old friend, and Hinata Hyuuga, another result of nepotism. Sakura’s handmaiden, Tenten, stood behind them.

 

Sakura stood and dipped into a bow to the Hokage, who waved her off. She still looked young and strong, despite her age. Her blond hair and kept to the side and her brown eyes, typically hard and aggressive, were softened for Sakura.

 

“My Lady,” Sakura said properly.

 

Tsunade dismissed formalities with a wave of her hand. Amongst the five of them, there was very little need for it.

 

“Sakura. Come walk with me.”

 

It wasn’t a request. Tsunade had precious few of them. Sakura was gifted more than most people ever saw in their lives. She was lucky that way.

 

Sakura let Tenten help her into something finer than what she was wearing already. Pink and pale blue linen, not the rare and costly silk provided by the Aburame. This wasn’t formal. It was important though, that people who saw them walk the halls of the castle needed to see her as strong, or at least wealthy. Politics was sixty percent perception, after all.

 

“My Lady,” Sakura broke the quiet first. The other girls trailed after them in a line, quiet and attentive. “What are we going to do about the sun?”

 

Tsunade let out a breath. “There’s not much we can do. The sun will go out, like it did before, and people will die. We’re going to push off me stepping down for a while. I don’t want you coming into power with such a bad sign hanging over your head.”

 

“So it is a bad sign…”

 

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes shit just happens. I’m still losing every game I play, so we know it’s not the end of the world as we know it. Don’t worry so much. We’ll wait another few months before I step down and you’ll step up and I won’t have to deal with the council of elder, or the clans, or the civilian reps anymore. It’ll be great.”

 

Sakura was not looking forward to that. The Council of Elders was made up of three people who had been around since the second generation of Konoha. They looked down on Tsunade already, for being so much younger than the Hokage before her. Sakura could only imagine what they would think of her.

 

On their same side would be the clan heads, the Shinobi Council. Comprised by clan heads, and the head of the Board of Education. There was always fighting and squabbling and scrounging for any power they could get their hands on, great or small.  They respected power and nothing else, and Sakura was from a clan with precious little. Her parents were great soldier, and their parents before them, but that didn’t amount much to the Hyuuga, who saw everything and knew everyone, or the Uchiha, richer than gods and more clever than anyone wanted to admit. Sakura’s support would come from her own family, from the Yamanaka, and, if she was lucky, the Yamanaka allies Nara and Akimichi.

 

The three of them were indispensible important. While larger clans boasted wealth and pedigree and descent from deities the Yamanaka, the Nara, and the Akimichi collectively ruled anything that had to do with agriculture and medicines. Without either of which their society would crumble, people would die, and no money would save anyone.

 

They were powerful, needed allies.

 

The Council of Civilians was made up of people elected by anyone who did not belong to a Clan, or didn’t act as vassals for one, and anyone who was not a soldier. Though there were precious few of them. There had been more, long ago, but they had eaten up by clans and militia and flat out death during the more turbulent times in history.

 

The three were kept as far away from each other as anyone could get. The last time a Tri-Council meeting was held it ended with a fist fight and the late - Hyuuga head stabbed. He hadn’t died, but it had resulted in tension that was still felt to this day.

 

“Can’t I just disband them and do what I want?” Sakura complained, not loud enough to be overhead.

 

Tsunade gave a very unladylike snort. “Oh yes, _Empress_ Sakura, that would go well. You’d be executed in your sleep.”

 

“Is it an execution or an assassination if I’m the head of state?”

 

Tsunade smacked her head. “Don’t get smart.”

 

Sakura whined and rubbed her head. “That hurt!”

 

“Why are we out here anyways?” Sakura asked. “You don’t usually make these late time visits.”

 

Tsunade looked at her. There was something about her, something… withheld. She wasn’t saying someone. Her tongue was stuck behind her teeth. She looked to Shizune, who pressed her lips into a line but didn’t give any other indication of what she thought of the matter. Hinata and Ino stood behind her, watching the exchange.

 

Tenten had stopped a ways behind her, too far away to hear. A chill crept up Sakura’s spine.

 

“What is it?” she asked again, more insistent.

 

Tsunade lay a hand on Sakura’s shoulder that felt weighted with the world and some secret she didn’t know.

 

“It’s nothing,” Tsunade said at last. “I just wanted to settle your nerves. Go get some sleep, Sakura.”

 

How was she supposed to sleep after that?


End file.
